Category: Government / Topics: Credibility • Government • Media • Opinion research • Perception
by Stu Johnson
Posted: November 327, 2016
Reporting and predicting the 2016 election…
For a PDF version of this blog, which will be easier to print, click here.
A few paragraphs of this blog were updated December 2 to reflect early post-election analysis about voting among middle class industrial workers.
It’s been two weeks since Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election in the United States, a result that shocked many, leaving plenty of leftover “humble pie” on the table as we approach Thanksgiving. Why did the experts miss it? In my blog of September 9, I observed that there appeared to be five types of content that were being treated by all news outlets (broadcast/cable, print and internet), in a roughly descending priority of importance:
Polling – attention to poll results
Pouncing – attacks by candidates, pundits or media sources
Problems – internal troubles within a campaign or external ones related to a candidate
Process – stories related to campaign organizations, parties, or government
Policy – candidate and campaign statements on policy positions, media analysis
The morning after the November 8 election, there were profuse apologies and much head-scratching from many corners for missing the electoral college upset by Donald Trump. It seems that the misreading of the 2016 presidential election fell into several broad categories:
The map changed on election night. As the view switched from states to counties, the country turned bright red,. The only blue areas were those counties in large metropolitan areas, traditional Democratic strongholds that would be enough to capture the state’s electoral votes. For Hillary Clinton in 2016, however, the electoral college loss seems to be a combination of low voter turnout for her, stronger than projected turnout for Trump, the presence of third-party candidates that hurt Clinton far more than Trump and, perhaps more important than assumed, the loss of support from traditionally Democratic voters in the "rust belt."
More than one commentator referred to the Democrats of 2016 as a "coastal" party, losing the vast center of America for strongholds in the large metropolitan areas along the east and west coasts. That observation, while it spins well, is not quite accurate as I pointed out above--while the coasts were dramatically blue, it is urban centers across the country that lit up as blue. More accurate may be the observation of several other commentators that Democratic support has gone to the top and bottom of the economic ladder, losing large chucks of working-class Americca. It will be interesting to see whether good-quality post-election research bears that out.
Using national polls to predict state results can be dicey; the numbers simply get too small to assure statistical reliability at the state level. Similar problems exist when using state or regional polls to make projections at the county level. In Illinois, where I live, there are 102 counties, representing an even greater problem for drilling down into data from a small sample.
In addition, in the age of cell phones and social media, getting samples that accurately represent the demographics of the universe (the total number of people being represented by the poll—nation, region, or state) continues to get more difficult with every election.
Most of those red counties represent “fly-over” country that is generally dismissed by pollsters, pundits and the national press whose worlds exist in the blue—densely populated urban centers. On one extreme, some observers see people living outside the urban centers as “alt-right,” as one headline described Trump’s most ardent supporters. On the other hand, geography alone suggests that it is simply easier to cover the blue urban centers than to try to cover the vast territory of the red counties.
As election results became more clear, it was obvious that Clinton under-performed expectations, while Trump over-performed. Not only did Trump have a slightly greater portion of women, blacks and Hispanics than Romney captured in 2012, in most states his presence on the ballot did not appear to be a significant drag on down-ballot positions. While there were declines in the number of both House and Senate seats, the Republicans did retain control of both houses of Congress. The game of expectations came up short, for which Donald Trump and the GOP were the winners.
REPORTING THE ELECTION—AN OBSERVATION
Back to my focus on the “reporting priorities.” Most of my observations for that September blog were based on my own exposure to broadcast/cable news, the regional daily newspaper we subscribe to, and internet sources. When in my office, I use three monitors, which allows me to keep one monitor focused most of the time on one source. Starting with the Republican and Democratic Conventions (July 18-21 and July 25-28 respectively) and running through mid-September, I tracked the headlines on the Comcast/Xfinity home page related to the election. Comcast—which owns NBC and its affiliated cable channels—was heavily involved in coverage of the Summer Olympics (August 5-21), producing times of literal black hole for election coverage.
The headlines were recorded several times most days as screen captures while I was working at the computer (having multiple monitors allowed me to see the Comcast home page frequently while doing other work). A listing of the 315 headlines appears at the end of this blog. While I did follow some links to see what sources Comcast was using, my primary interest was in the headlines themselves. On the links I did check, there was fair representation from Fox, CNN, and sources other than those owned by Comcast.
The power of headlines. Even when people do not follow a link, the headline has a chance of making an impression. The wording and any associated pictures are important. A turn of words can certainly have an impact, such as “Bizarre New Poll Result,” “Trump Plunges to Stunning Low,” :”DNC Chief Apologies…”
Photos can have an even greater subliminal effect—even without reading the headline, a photo of a smiling candidate against an American flag is a stark contrast to one where the candidate appears tired, distracted or scowling. In the listing of the headlines at the end of the blog, I included on many of them a description of the photo, particularly noting the background or any obvious emotion.
Interpreting emotion in a photo can be risky. In a famous experiment in the early days of film, Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein showed that context affects the perception of meaning. By cutting an image of a person with a neutral expression into different scenes, the observer could be made to see that person in a range of emotions. Eisenstein understood the power of montage as the essence of story-telling in film. So, it is with the choice of photos associated with headlines.
Unless associated with a serious problem or negative story, Clinton was often shown smiling and/or speaking against a bright background of American flags or a rally setting. It caught my attention that while Trump was shown in similar settings, there seemed to be a disproportionate number where he was shown in close-up with a black background. Even where flags or other colorful elements may be present, when a person is in a spotlight, the background can fall into darkness. By itself, that is not striking. However, in balance with the more generally colorful and cheerful photos of Hillary Clinton, it did make me wonder whether there was a subtle or even intentional bias to select photos of Trump that appeared more menacing or at least less upbeat.
Video links. When you click video links, Comcast forces you to watch a 15- to 30-second commercial before revealing the requested video. Since there is no option to skip the ad after several seconds, as some sites allow, how many people hit the back button before waiting for the commercial to finish? IF you do watch a video, at its conclusion another ad immediately begins and then cycles to the next video in the current sequence.
Some video reports were comprehensive, fair and well-presented. Others, however, were weak in content or obviously slanted in perspective, suggesting that editors were grasping for content, potentially using a story because it fit a desired narrative.
While I stand by my initial ordering of the five priorities, at least for lead stories on TV and the front pages of a newspaper, the Comcast headlines showed a different order:
Problems (103 stories)
Process (63, though some of these could have been called problems)
Pouncing (54)
Polling (38)
Policy (27 – also bottom on my original list)
In addition, 30 headlines did not fit these five, so they were assigned to a category labelled “Other.”
The following overview is purposely broad. The headlines obtained from the screen grabs was random, occurring when I was at the computer, so I will present my impression in very broad strokes.
In the descriptions that follow, reference to the candidate also includes headlines related to their party, VP candidate, or others that would be associated with their campaign.
Negatives abound. Overall, half of the headlines (159) were negative. Fully one-third (107) were negative toward Trump or the GOP while only half of that (52) were negative toward Clinton or the Democrats.
Of the 107 negative stories about Trump and the GOP, half (62) were categorized as problems, a third (37) as pouncing, leaving about one in ten (8) as polling. Of the 52 negative stories about Clinton and the Democrats, seven in ten (26) were categorized as problems, one quarter (14) as pouncing, and only one negative headline related to polling.
Positive or neutral headlines aimed at either candidate accounted for four in ten (128) of the headlines; 69 for Clinton and the Democrats, 59 for Trump and the GOP.
Of the 69 positive stories about Clinton and the Democrats, nearly half (32) were categorized as process, two in ten (15) as polling and (14) as other, and one in ten (8) as policy. Of the 59 positive stores about Trump and the Republicans, nearly half (28) were categorized as process, a quarter (16) as policy, less than two in ten (10) as other, and one in ten (5) as polling.
The “other” stories included such things as non-election activities by people associated with the campaign, and other topics that did not fit into the five main categories but could be identified with either candidate.
Polling. While the 38 headlines put polling in fourth place among the Comcast headlines, I still rate polling as a top priority for election coverage overall. The problems with polling alluded to earlier are seen in some of the headlines. For example, here are the headlines over a few days as August turned to September:
“Clinton’s Lead Over Trump Reaches Milestone” (August 27)
“New Presidential Poll is Grim News for Trump” (August 28)
“Trump Chips Away at Clinton’s Lead” (August 29)
“Clinton’s Lead Narrows in New Poll” (September 1)
“Clinton Leads Trump in National Poll” (September 2)
“New Poll Shows Clinton Crushing Trump” (September 3)
“Stunning Results in Latest Poll as Trump Surges” (September 4)
Then, the last few headlines I tracked in mid-September:
“Why Clinton Got Bigger Convention Bump” (September 16)
“Clinton Outdoing Trump in Must-Win State” (September 17)
“Clinton Pulls Ahead in Ps., Minn. Polls (September 19)
“Poll: Clinton Leads by 5 Points” (September 20)
Policy. The fewest number of headlines (27) were devoted to policy positions, 16 about Trump, 8 about Clinton, and 3 comparing the two. The topics that rated coverage focused on the economy, immigration, trade and terrorism. It was interesting to note the difference in the quality of the “fact-checking” stories. The best, in my opinion, were longer newspaper reports that made the effort to pursue matters in depth. While a few television reports took time to develop a story, others were simply giving air time to the opinion of one “expert” who may agree or disagree with the candidate.
General stories accounted for less than one in ten (30) of all headlines. They were stories that applied to both candidates, neither candidate or party, or overall analysis. 9 stories related to polling (i.e., “Who Would Win the Election Today?”), 6 as other (i.e., comparing the candidate’s luxury homes), 4 as problems, and 3 each as pouncing, process and policy.
Sometimes, it appeared that a general story could be used to get a photo favorable to one candidate on the home page. For example, “Compare Clinton and Trump’s Luxurious Homes” appeared by that or a similar title three times in the nine weeks (7/27, 7/31, and 8/16). Two of those featured a photo of Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton, the third a photo of Hillary. Another story on “See Clinton and Trump’s Childhood Homes” (9/6) has a photo of a smiling Hillary Clinton with an American flag in the background. A story on “Trump’s First Home on the Market for $1.5-million” (8/11) and “Bernie Sanders Buys Third Home” (8/16) both had photos of the candidates at rallies. The headline “Clintons Made $10.6 Million in 2015” appeared in the news section without a photo.
WILL WE LEARN ANYTHING?
For those who fear the power of the media to shape opinion—myself included—there are some lessons from the election of 2016. The biggest may well be the sense that the proliferation of media today and the still-evolving influence of social media, have diluted the influence once available to television networks, major newspapers and news magazines. Hopefully, there will be lessons learned about the pitfall of setting expectations, particularly when shaped by ideological bias. To do this, journalists need to return to a healthy skepticism that should lead them to dig deeper.
While much has been said decrying a divided nation, we all must remember that the wisdom of the Founding Fathers was to create a system that would survive and even thrive on division rather than falling to totalitarianism. We have lost a sense of history and knowledge of basic civics to understand our role as citizens. Politics in America has always been a rough-and-tumble affair, which we must admit is deeply rooted in our culture, but it does seem we could try more often to meet in the middle rather than being driven to extremes.
THE HEADLINES
The Comcast home page is arranged with a large rotating banner toward the top of the page, then eight sections with five headlines each (Top News, Finance, and Entertainment being the most applicable here). The description for each headline includes:
Polling
Pouncing
Problems
Process
Policy
Other
Search all articles by Stu Johnson
Stu Johnson is owner of Stuart Johnson & Associates, a communications consultancy in Wheaton, Illinois focused on "making information make sense."
• E-mail the author (moc.setaicossajs@uts*)* For web-based email, you may need to copy and paste the address yourself.
Posted: November 327, 2016 Accessed 4,416 times
Go to the list of most recent InfoMatters Blogs
Search InfoMatters (You can expand the search to the entire site)
Category: Government / Topics: Credibility • Government • Media • Opinion research • Perception
by Stu Johnson
Posted: November 327, 2016
Reporting and predicting the 2016 election…
For a PDF version of this blog, which will be easier to print, click here.
A few paragraphs of this blog were updated December 2 to reflect early post-election analysis about voting among middle class industrial workers.
It’s been two weeks since Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election in the United States, a result that shocked many, leaving plenty of leftover “humble pie” on the table as we approach Thanksgiving. Why did the experts miss it? In my blog of September 9, I observed that there appeared to be five types of content that were being treated by all news outlets (broadcast/cable, print and internet), in a roughly descending priority of importance:
Polling – attention to poll results
Pouncing – attacks by candidates, pundits or media sources
Problems – internal troubles within a campaign or external ones related to a candidate
Process – stories related to campaign organizations, parties, or government
Policy – candidate and campaign statements on policy positions, media analysis
The morning after the November 8 election, there were profuse apologies and much head-scratching from many corners for missing the electoral college upset by Donald Trump. It seems that the misreading of the 2016 presidential election fell into several broad categories:
The map changed on election night. As the view switched from states to counties, the country turned bright red,. The only blue areas were those counties in large metropolitan areas, traditional Democratic strongholds that would be enough to capture the state’s electoral votes. For Hillary Clinton in 2016, however, the electoral college loss seems to be a combination of low voter turnout for her, stronger than projected turnout for Trump, the presence of third-party candidates that hurt Clinton far more than Trump and, perhaps more important than assumed, the loss of support from traditionally Democratic voters in the "rust belt."
More than one commentator referred to the Democrats of 2016 as a "coastal" party, losing the vast center of America for strongholds in the large metropolitan areas along the east and west coasts. That observation, while it spins well, is not quite accurate as I pointed out above--while the coasts were dramatically blue, it is urban centers across the country that lit up as blue. More accurate may be the observation of several other commentators that Democratic support has gone to the top and bottom of the economic ladder, losing large chucks of working-class Americca. It will be interesting to see whether good-quality post-election research bears that out.
Using national polls to predict state results can be dicey; the numbers simply get too small to assure statistical reliability at the state level. Similar problems exist when using state or regional polls to make projections at the county level. In Illinois, where I live, there are 102 counties, representing an even greater problem for drilling down into data from a small sample.
In addition, in the age of cell phones and social media, getting samples that accurately represent the demographics of the universe (the total number of people being represented by the poll—nation, region, or state) continues to get more difficult with every election.
Most of those red counties represent “fly-over” country that is generally dismissed by pollsters, pundits and the national press whose worlds exist in the blue—densely populated urban centers. On one extreme, some observers see people living outside the urban centers as “alt-right,” as one headline described Trump’s most ardent supporters. On the other hand, geography alone suggests that it is simply easier to cover the blue urban centers than to try to cover the vast territory of the red counties.
As election results became more clear, it was obvious that Clinton under-performed expectations, while Trump over-performed. Not only did Trump have a slightly greater portion of women, blacks and Hispanics than Romney captured in 2012, in most states his presence on the ballot did not appear to be a significant drag on down-ballot positions. While there were declines in the number of both House and Senate seats, the Republicans did retain control of both houses of Congress. The game of expectations came up short, for which Donald Trump and the GOP were the winners.
REPORTING THE ELECTION—AN OBSERVATION
Back to my focus on the “reporting priorities.” Most of my observations for that September blog were based on my own exposure to broadcast/cable news, the regional daily newspaper we subscribe to, and internet sources. When in my office, I use three monitors, which allows me to keep one monitor focused most of the time on one source. Starting with the Republican and Democratic Conventions (July 18-21 and July 25-28 respectively) and running through mid-September, I tracked the headlines on the Comcast/Xfinity home page related to the election. Comcast—which owns NBC and its affiliated cable channels—was heavily involved in coverage of the Summer Olympics (August 5-21), producing times of literal black hole for election coverage.
The headlines were recorded several times most days as screen captures while I was working at the computer (having multiple monitors allowed me to see the Comcast home page frequently while doing other work). A listing of the 315 headlines appears at the end of this blog. While I did follow some links to see what sources Comcast was using, my primary interest was in the headlines themselves. On the links I did check, there was fair representation from Fox, CNN, and sources other than those owned by Comcast.
The power of headlines. Even when people do not follow a link, the headline has a chance of making an impression. The wording and any associated pictures are important. A turn of words can certainly have an impact, such as “Bizarre New Poll Result,” “Trump Plunges to Stunning Low,” :”DNC Chief Apologies…”
Photos can have an even greater subliminal effect—even without reading the headline, a photo of a smiling candidate against an American flag is a stark contrast to one where the candidate appears tired, distracted or scowling. In the listing of the headlines at the end of the blog, I included on many of them a description of the photo, particularly noting the background or any obvious emotion.
Interpreting emotion in a photo can be risky. In a famous experiment in the early days of film, Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein showed that context affects the perception of meaning. By cutting an image of a person with a neutral expression into different scenes, the observer could be made to see that person in a range of emotions. Eisenstein understood the power of montage as the essence of story-telling in film. So, it is with the choice of photos associated with headlines.
Unless associated with a serious problem or negative story, Clinton was often shown smiling and/or speaking against a bright background of American flags or a rally setting. It caught my attention that while Trump was shown in similar settings, there seemed to be a disproportionate number where he was shown in close-up with a black background. Even where flags or other colorful elements may be present, when a person is in a spotlight, the background can fall into darkness. By itself, that is not striking. However, in balance with the more generally colorful and cheerful photos of Hillary Clinton, it did make me wonder whether there was a subtle or even intentional bias to select photos of Trump that appeared more menacing or at least less upbeat.
Video links. When you click video links, Comcast forces you to watch a 15- to 30-second commercial before revealing the requested video. Since there is no option to skip the ad after several seconds, as some sites allow, how many people hit the back button before waiting for the commercial to finish? IF you do watch a video, at its conclusion another ad immediately begins and then cycles to the next video in the current sequence.
Some video reports were comprehensive, fair and well-presented. Others, however, were weak in content or obviously slanted in perspective, suggesting that editors were grasping for content, potentially using a story because it fit a desired narrative.
While I stand by my initial ordering of the five priorities, at least for lead stories on TV and the front pages of a newspaper, the Comcast headlines showed a different order:
Problems (103 stories)
Process (63, though some of these could have been called problems)
Pouncing (54)
Polling (38)
Policy (27 – also bottom on my original list)
In addition, 30 headlines did not fit these five, so they were assigned to a category labelled “Other.”
The following overview is purposely broad. The headlines obtained from the screen grabs was random, occurring when I was at the computer, so I will present my impression in very broad strokes.
In the descriptions that follow, reference to the candidate also includes headlines related to their party, VP candidate, or others that would be associated with their campaign.
Negatives abound. Overall, half of the headlines (159) were negative. Fully one-third (107) were negative toward Trump or the GOP while only half of that (52) were negative toward Clinton or the Democrats.
Of the 107 negative stories about Trump and the GOP, half (62) were categorized as problems, a third (37) as pouncing, leaving about one in ten (8) as polling. Of the 52 negative stories about Clinton and the Democrats, seven in ten (26) were categorized as problems, one quarter (14) as pouncing, and only one negative headline related to polling.
Positive or neutral headlines aimed at either candidate accounted for four in ten (128) of the headlines; 69 for Clinton and the Democrats, 59 for Trump and the GOP.
Of the 69 positive stories about Clinton and the Democrats, nearly half (32) were categorized as process, two in ten (15) as polling and (14) as other, and one in ten (8) as policy. Of the 59 positive stores about Trump and the Republicans, nearly half (28) were categorized as process, a quarter (16) as policy, less than two in ten (10) as other, and one in ten (5) as polling.
The “other” stories included such things as non-election activities by people associated with the campaign, and other topics that did not fit into the five main categories but could be identified with either candidate.
Polling. While the 38 headlines put polling in fourth place among the Comcast headlines, I still rate polling as a top priority for election coverage overall. The problems with polling alluded to earlier are seen in some of the headlines. For example, here are the headlines over a few days as August turned to September:
“Clinton’s Lead Over Trump Reaches Milestone” (August 27)
“New Presidential Poll is Grim News for Trump” (August 28)
“Trump Chips Away at Clinton’s Lead” (August 29)
“Clinton’s Lead Narrows in New Poll” (September 1)
“Clinton Leads Trump in National Poll” (September 2)
“New Poll Shows Clinton Crushing Trump” (September 3)
“Stunning Results in Latest Poll as Trump Surges” (September 4)
Then, the last few headlines I tracked in mid-September:
“Why Clinton Got Bigger Convention Bump” (September 16)
“Clinton Outdoing Trump in Must-Win State” (September 17)
“Clinton Pulls Ahead in Ps., Minn. Polls (September 19)
“Poll: Clinton Leads by 5 Points” (September 20)
Policy. The fewest number of headlines (27) were devoted to policy positions, 16 about Trump, 8 about Clinton, and 3 comparing the two. The topics that rated coverage focused on the economy, immigration, trade and terrorism. It was interesting to note the difference in the quality of the “fact-checking” stories. The best, in my opinion, were longer newspaper reports that made the effort to pursue matters in depth. While a few television reports took time to develop a story, others were simply giving air time to the opinion of one “expert” who may agree or disagree with the candidate.
General stories accounted for less than one in ten (30) of all headlines. They were stories that applied to both candidates, neither candidate or party, or overall analysis. 9 stories related to polling (i.e., “Who Would Win the Election Today?”), 6 as other (i.e., comparing the candidate’s luxury homes), 4 as problems, and 3 each as pouncing, process and policy.
Sometimes, it appeared that a general story could be used to get a photo favorable to one candidate on the home page. For example, “Compare Clinton and Trump’s Luxurious Homes” appeared by that or a similar title three times in the nine weeks (7/27, 7/31, and 8/16). Two of those featured a photo of Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton, the third a photo of Hillary. Another story on “See Clinton and Trump’s Childhood Homes” (9/6) has a photo of a smiling Hillary Clinton with an American flag in the background. A story on “Trump’s First Home on the Market for $1.5-million” (8/11) and “Bernie Sanders Buys Third Home” (8/16) both had photos of the candidates at rallies. The headline “Clintons Made $10.6 Million in 2015” appeared in the news section without a photo.
WILL WE LEARN ANYTHING?
For those who fear the power of the media to shape opinion—myself included—there are some lessons from the election of 2016. The biggest may well be the sense that the proliferation of media today and the still-evolving influence of social media, have diluted the influence once available to television networks, major newspapers and news magazines. Hopefully, there will be lessons learned about the pitfall of setting expectations, particularly when shaped by ideological bias. To do this, journalists need to return to a healthy skepticism that should lead them to dig deeper.
While much has been said decrying a divided nation, we all must remember that the wisdom of the Founding Fathers was to create a system that would survive and even thrive on division rather than falling to totalitarianism. We have lost a sense of history and knowledge of basic civics to understand our role as citizens. Politics in America has always been a rough-and-tumble affair, which we must admit is deeply rooted in our culture, but it does seem we could try more often to meet in the middle rather than being driven to extremes.
THE HEADLINES
The Comcast home page is arranged with a large rotating banner toward the top of the page, then eight sections with five headlines each (Top News, Finance, and Entertainment being the most applicable here). The description for each headline includes:
Polling
Pouncing
Problems
Process
Policy
Other
Search all articles by Stu Johnson
Stu Johnson is owner of Stuart Johnson & Associates, a communications consultancy in Wheaton, Illinois focused on "making information make sense."
• E-mail the author (moc.setaicossajs@uts*)* For web-based email, you may need to copy and paste the address yourself.
Posted: November 327, 2016 Accessed 4,417 times
Go to the list of most recent InfoMatters Blogs
Search InfoMatters (You can expand the search to the entire site)
Category: Government / Topics: Credibility • Government • Media • Opinion research • Perception
by Stu Johnson
Posted: November 327, 2016
Reporting and predicting the 2016 election…
For a PDF version of this blog, which will be easier to print, click here.
A few paragraphs of this blog were updated December 2 to reflect early post-election analysis about voting among middle class industrial workers.
It’s been two weeks since Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election in the United States, a result that shocked many, leaving plenty of leftover “humble pie” on the table as we approach Thanksgiving. Why did the experts miss it? In my blog of September 9, I observed that there appeared to be five types of content that were being treated by all news outlets (broadcast/cable, print and internet), in a roughly descending priority of importance:
Polling – attention to poll results
Pouncing – attacks by candidates, pundits or media sources
Problems – internal troubles within a campaign or external ones related to a candidate
Process – stories related to campaign organizations, parties, or government
Policy – candidate and campaign statements on policy positions, media analysis
The morning after the November 8 election, there were profuse apologies and much head-scratching from many corners for missing the electoral college upset by Donald Trump. It seems that the misreading of the 2016 presidential election fell into several broad categories:
The map changed on election night. As the view switched from states to counties, the country turned bright red,. The only blue areas were those counties in large metropolitan areas, traditional Democratic strongholds that would be enough to capture the state’s electoral votes. For Hillary Clinton in 2016, however, the electoral college loss seems to be a combination of low voter turnout for her, stronger than projected turnout for Trump, the presence of third-party candidates that hurt Clinton far more than Trump and, perhaps more important than assumed, the loss of support from traditionally Democratic voters in the "rust belt."
More than one commentator referred to the Democrats of 2016 as a "coastal" party, losing the vast center of America for strongholds in the large metropolitan areas along the east and west coasts. That observation, while it spins well, is not quite accurate as I pointed out above--while the coasts were dramatically blue, it is urban centers across the country that lit up as blue. More accurate may be the observation of several other commentators that Democratic support has gone to the top and bottom of the economic ladder, losing large chucks of working-class Americca. It will be interesting to see whether good-quality post-election research bears that out.
Using national polls to predict state results can be dicey; the numbers simply get too small to assure statistical reliability at the state level. Similar problems exist when using state or regional polls to make projections at the county level. In Illinois, where I live, there are 102 counties, representing an even greater problem for drilling down into data from a small sample.
In addition, in the age of cell phones and social media, getting samples that accurately represent the demographics of the universe (the total number of people being represented by the poll—nation, region, or state) continues to get more difficult with every election.
Most of those red counties represent “fly-over” country that is generally dismissed by pollsters, pundits and the national press whose worlds exist in the blue—densely populated urban centers. On one extreme, some observers see people living outside the urban centers as “alt-right,” as one headline described Trump’s most ardent supporters. On the other hand, geography alone suggests that it is simply easier to cover the blue urban centers than to try to cover the vast territory of the red counties.
As election results became more clear, it was obvious that Clinton under-performed expectations, while Trump over-performed. Not only did Trump have a slightly greater portion of women, blacks and Hispanics than Romney captured in 2012, in most states his presence on the ballot did not appear to be a significant drag on down-ballot positions. While there were declines in the number of both House and Senate seats, the Republicans did retain control of both houses of Congress. The game of expectations came up short, for which Donald Trump and the GOP were the winners.
REPORTING THE ELECTION—AN OBSERVATION
Back to my focus on the “reporting priorities.” Most of my observations for that September blog were based on my own exposure to broadcast/cable news, the regional daily newspaper we subscribe to, and internet sources. When in my office, I use three monitors, which allows me to keep one monitor focused most of the time on one source. Starting with the Republican and Democratic Conventions (July 18-21 and July 25-28 respectively) and running through mid-September, I tracked the headlines on the Comcast/Xfinity home page related to the election. Comcast—which owns NBC and its affiliated cable channels—was heavily involved in coverage of the Summer Olympics (August 5-21), producing times of literal black hole for election coverage.
The headlines were recorded several times most days as screen captures while I was working at the computer (having multiple monitors allowed me to see the Comcast home page frequently while doing other work). A listing of the 315 headlines appears at the end of this blog. While I did follow some links to see what sources Comcast was using, my primary interest was in the headlines themselves. On the links I did check, there was fair representation from Fox, CNN, and sources other than those owned by Comcast.
The power of headlines. Even when people do not follow a link, the headline has a chance of making an impression. The wording and any associated pictures are important. A turn of words can certainly have an impact, such as “Bizarre New Poll Result,” “Trump Plunges to Stunning Low,” :”DNC Chief Apologies…”
Photos can have an even greater subliminal effect—even without reading the headline, a photo of a smiling candidate against an American flag is a stark contrast to one where the candidate appears tired, distracted or scowling. In the listing of the headlines at the end of the blog, I included on many of them a description of the photo, particularly noting the background or any obvious emotion.
Interpreting emotion in a photo can be risky. In a famous experiment in the early days of film, Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein showed that context affects the perception of meaning. By cutting an image of a person with a neutral expression into different scenes, the observer could be made to see that person in a range of emotions. Eisenstein understood the power of montage as the essence of story-telling in film. So, it is with the choice of photos associated with headlines.
Unless associated with a serious problem or negative story, Clinton was often shown smiling and/or speaking against a bright background of American flags or a rally setting. It caught my attention that while Trump was shown in similar settings, there seemed to be a disproportionate number where he was shown in close-up with a black background. Even where flags or other colorful elements may be present, when a person is in a spotlight, the background can fall into darkness. By itself, that is not striking. However, in balance with the more generally colorful and cheerful photos of Hillary Clinton, it did make me wonder whether there was a subtle or even intentional bias to select photos of Trump that appeared more menacing or at least less upbeat.
Video links. When you click video links, Comcast forces you to watch a 15- to 30-second commercial before revealing the requested video. Since there is no option to skip the ad after several seconds, as some sites allow, how many people hit the back button before waiting for the commercial to finish? IF you do watch a video, at its conclusion another ad immediately begins and then cycles to the next video in the current sequence.
Some video reports were comprehensive, fair and well-presented. Others, however, were weak in content or obviously slanted in perspective, suggesting that editors were grasping for content, potentially using a story because it fit a desired narrative.
While I stand by my initial ordering of the five priorities, at least for lead stories on TV and the front pages of a newspaper, the Comcast headlines showed a different order:
Problems (103 stories)
Process (63, though some of these could have been called problems)
Pouncing (54)
Polling (38)
Policy (27 – also bottom on my original list)
In addition, 30 headlines did not fit these five, so they were assigned to a category labelled “Other.”
The following overview is purposely broad. The headlines obtained from the screen grabs was random, occurring when I was at the computer, so I will present my impression in very broad strokes.
In the descriptions that follow, reference to the candidate also includes headlines related to their party, VP candidate, or others that would be associated with their campaign.
Negatives abound. Overall, half of the headlines (159) were negative. Fully one-third (107) were negative toward Trump or the GOP while only half of that (52) were negative toward Clinton or the Democrats.
Of the 107 negative stories about Trump and the GOP, half (62) were categorized as problems, a third (37) as pouncing, leaving about one in ten (8) as polling. Of the 52 negative stories about Clinton and the Democrats, seven in ten (26) were categorized as problems, one quarter (14) as pouncing, and only one negative headline related to polling.
Positive or neutral headlines aimed at either candidate accounted for four in ten (128) of the headlines; 69 for Clinton and the Democrats, 59 for Trump and the GOP.
Of the 69 positive stories about Clinton and the Democrats, nearly half (32) were categorized as process, two in ten (15) as polling and (14) as other, and one in ten (8) as policy. Of the 59 positive stores about Trump and the Republicans, nearly half (28) were categorized as process, a quarter (16) as policy, less than two in ten (10) as other, and one in ten (5) as polling.
The “other” stories included such things as non-election activities by people associated with the campaign, and other topics that did not fit into the five main categories but could be identified with either candidate.
Polling. While the 38 headlines put polling in fourth place among the Comcast headlines, I still rate polling as a top priority for election coverage overall. The problems with polling alluded to earlier are seen in some of the headlines. For example, here are the headlines over a few days as August turned to September:
“Clinton’s Lead Over Trump Reaches Milestone” (August 27)
“New Presidential Poll is Grim News for Trump” (August 28)
“Trump Chips Away at Clinton’s Lead” (August 29)
“Clinton’s Lead Narrows in New Poll” (September 1)
“Clinton Leads Trump in National Poll” (September 2)
“New Poll Shows Clinton Crushing Trump” (September 3)
“Stunning Results in Latest Poll as Trump Surges” (September 4)
Then, the last few headlines I tracked in mid-September:
“Why Clinton Got Bigger Convention Bump” (September 16)
“Clinton Outdoing Trump in Must-Win State” (September 17)
“Clinton Pulls Ahead in Ps., Minn. Polls (September 19)
“Poll: Clinton Leads by 5 Points” (September 20)
Policy. The fewest number of headlines (27) were devoted to policy positions, 16 about Trump, 8 about Clinton, and 3 comparing the two. The topics that rated coverage focused on the economy, immigration, trade and terrorism. It was interesting to note the difference in the quality of the “fact-checking” stories. The best, in my opinion, were longer newspaper reports that made the effort to pursue matters in depth. While a few television reports took time to develop a story, others were simply giving air time to the opinion of one “expert” who may agree or disagree with the candidate.
General stories accounted for less than one in ten (30) of all headlines. They were stories that applied to both candidates, neither candidate or party, or overall analysis. 9 stories related to polling (i.e., “Who Would Win the Election Today?”), 6 as other (i.e., comparing the candidate’s luxury homes), 4 as problems, and 3 each as pouncing, process and policy.
Sometimes, it appeared that a general story could be used to get a photo favorable to one candidate on the home page. For example, “Compare Clinton and Trump’s Luxurious Homes” appeared by that or a similar title three times in the nine weeks (7/27, 7/31, and 8/16). Two of those featured a photo of Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton, the third a photo of Hillary. Another story on “See Clinton and Trump’s Childhood Homes” (9/6) has a photo of a smiling Hillary Clinton with an American flag in the background. A story on “Trump’s First Home on the Market for $1.5-million” (8/11) and “Bernie Sanders Buys Third Home” (8/16) both had photos of the candidates at rallies. The headline “Clintons Made $10.6 Million in 2015” appeared in the news section without a photo.
WILL WE LEARN ANYTHING?
For those who fear the power of the media to shape opinion—myself included—there are some lessons from the election of 2016. The biggest may well be the sense that the proliferation of media today and the still-evolving influence of social media, have diluted the influence once available to television networks, major newspapers and news magazines. Hopefully, there will be lessons learned about the pitfall of setting expectations, particularly when shaped by ideological bias. To do this, journalists need to return to a healthy skepticism that should lead them to dig deeper.
While much has been said decrying a divided nation, we all must remember that the wisdom of the Founding Fathers was to create a system that would survive and even thrive on division rather than falling to totalitarianism. We have lost a sense of history and knowledge of basic civics to understand our role as citizens. Politics in America has always been a rough-and-tumble affair, which we must admit is deeply rooted in our culture, but it does seem we could try more often to meet in the middle rather than being driven to extremes.
THE HEADLINES
The Comcast home page is arranged with a large rotating banner toward the top of the page, then eight sections with five headlines each (Top News, Finance, and Entertainment being the most applicable here). The description for each headline includes:
Polling
Pouncing
Problems
Process
Policy
Other
Search all articles by Stu Johnson
Stu Johnson is owner of Stuart Johnson & Associates, a communications consultancy in Wheaton, Illinois focused on "making information make sense."
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Posted: November 327, 2016 Accessed 4,418 times
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